MATAGORDA (AP) — Animal rescuers say a 43-foot whale has been found dead on a Texas beach.

The Victoria Advocate reports the baleen whale was discovered Tuesday on Matagorda Beach.

Heidi Whitehead with the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network in Galveston says it's definitely rare for a large whale to come ashore on the Texas coast. Whitehead says a necropsy was planned Wednesday.

Further details on the animal weren't immediately available.

In 1988, a Minke baleen whale that may have been beached on a deserted part of Matagorda Peninsula for nearly a week was destroyed by biologists who later found small pieces of plastic sheets in its stomach.